This paper explores some trajectories in the relationship between the state and accounting firms. When, in the mid-1990s, major firms considered the UK state to be insufficiently responsive to their lobbying for a limitation of their liability, pressures were exerted on the UK government by...

The interplay between the ideology of the profession that seeks to legitimize accounting's regulatory regime and the practices of accountants in expanding the scope of the markets for their labour is critical to understanding the changing “professional” ideology of accountants. This...

In 1984 the European Commission issued the Eighth Company Law Directive requiring each member State to ensure that its national rules met common standards for the education, training and qualification of statutory auditors (84/253/EEC; OJ 1984 L126/20). The Directive insisted that national...